- 2 months ago
You've known him for years in front of the camera on shows like Wings , Private Practice , opposite real-life leading lady, wife Téa Leoni in Madam Secretary , or in his latest Netflix hit, Leanne . But you may not know that behind the scenes, he's a fierce advocate for the arts in his role as President of the Creative Coalition, which fights for arts funding, free expression, and education in schools. He sat down with editor-in-chief, Joann Butler recently at the LifeMinute studios in Times Square to tell us all about it and more. This is a LifeMinute with Tim Daly.
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00:00Hi, I'm Tim Daly, and you're watching Life Minute TV.
00:03You've known him for years in front of the camera, on Wing's private practice, opposite
00:08real-life leading lady in Madam Secretary, or his latest Netflix hit, Leanne.
00:14But you may not know that behind the scenes, he's a fierce advocate for the arts in his
00:19role as president of the Creative Coalition, which fights for arts funding, free expression,
00:24and education in schools.
00:25Tim Daly sat down with me recently at our studios in Times Square to tell us all about
00:31it and more.
00:32This is a Life Minute with Tim Daly.
00:34Tim Daly in the house, yay!
00:36Hi!
00:37A longtime fan.
00:38I'm so happy you're with us.
00:40It's great to be here.
00:41So, you have a lot going on.
00:42I have been most recently on a TV show on Netflix called Leanne.
00:47So funny and so dear and so, I mean, I just adore her and I'm so happy for her success.
00:53You know, they just got picked up for a second season, so perhaps I'll do a few more.
00:59We'll see.
01:00Yay!
01:01Oh, I hope so.
01:02You're my favorite part of that.
01:03Oh, thank you.
01:04So good.
01:05Anything else that you're working on?
01:06Well, I have a movie called Dust to Malibu that I produced and acted in that I shot last
01:09year in Springfield, Missouri that's going to be at the Burbank Film Festival and the Woodstock
01:13New York Film Festival.
01:15So, I'm, you know, traveling around with that a little bit, trumpeting that.
01:19It's a beautiful father and daughter story that is very dear to me.
01:22It's a tiny little movie, but I think it's beautiful and very moving and funny.
01:26Oh, that's great.
01:27Did you always know you wanted to act, too, or?
01:30I didn't.
01:31I mean, my parents were actors and my sister is an actress, obviously.
01:36America's Time Daily, as I call her.
01:37So I knew it was something that people did, but I think because there were actors, I was,
01:43you know, had actors walking around my house, I wasn't particularly impressed by them.
01:47Then I started doing some acting and I knew it was something that I had some aptitude for
01:53and something that I really, really liked doing.
01:55But what I didn't know is whether or not I had the personality for it because I've known
01:59lots of people who have magnificent talent who don't have the personality to be rejected
02:06a thousand times before they get the permission to act professionally, we're talking about.
02:12I had to find that out for myself.
02:15But it was funny, you know, growing up, the dinner table conversation from time to time
02:18would be about Shakespeare and Ibsen and Shaw and Chekhov.
02:22And I got to New York without knowing that you had to have a headshot and a resume.
02:26I was like, what?
02:28My parents, like, what the hell?
02:29Like, they gave me no practical advice whatsoever.
02:33So I had to figure that out for myself.
02:35Yeah.
02:36And you're recently married.
02:37I am.
02:38Congratulations.
02:39Finally.
02:40I know.
02:41What took so long?
02:42Well, you know, I actually, I asked Tate to marry me, I think about nine years ago.
02:46She said, yes.
02:47She said, let's just wait a minute.
02:49Then nine years later, she asked me and I was like, yeah, I already asked.
02:54Anyway, so we got it done.
02:55Aww.
02:56And it's really, it's kind of amazing because it is a little different.
02:59How so?
03:00It's just, I don't know, it's just, there's something, it's better.
03:06Yeah.
03:07I like being married to Tate.
03:08Yeah, you're a good couple.
03:09Yeah, we are.
03:10They just look great together.
03:11What's your advice for like making it work?
03:14That's a hard thing to say because every couple is different and Tate and I are crazy about
03:19each other, which is really lucky.
03:21And also we have true intimacy, I think.
03:25We actually talk about everything, including the bad stuff.
03:30You know, part of my sort of daily routine in life is to, you know, spend a little time
03:34being in gratitude.
03:35And I realized at some point that I was being grateful for all the low hanging fruit, my
03:40kids, my, you know, I have food, I have a place to live, my dog, you know, all that
03:44stuff.
03:45And I've recently started to try to have some gratitude for the things that have been really
03:49challenging and painful because I wouldn't be here without all that stuff.
03:53And so being able to share all of that with my partner is a relief, you know, just creates
03:59an atmosphere of real trust.
04:03When did you realize you were in love?
04:05God, about four minutes after I met her at the office of Madam Secretary.
04:11I'd met Tate twice before because we went to the same high school, 10 years apart.
04:16I'm way older than she is.
04:18Way older.
04:19Did you hear that, babe?
04:20Way older.
04:21I was doing a fundraiser when I was doing Wings.
04:23I was at Paramount and she was there, you know, like a smoking hot 23-year-old or something.
04:29And I didn't pay her any mind because I was in the midst of all kinds of stuff.
04:33And then I met her again because her then husband was a friend with my first cousin.
04:39So I'd just kind of shaken her hand a couple of times.
04:42And then Madam Secretary happened and she just kind of caught me in her tractor beam.
04:49And I was like, I was terrified.
04:50I was like, oh my God.
04:52I'm crazy.
04:53Anyway, I just, it was quick.
04:54It was very fast.
04:55It was very fast.
04:56I have goosies.
04:57Yeah.
04:58Obviously helped your role.
04:59Oh, yeah.
05:00I mean, you know, every time people said we had great cameras here, I was like, yeah,
05:04no .
05:05Oh, sorry.
05:06Yeah, it was funny because our first season we were supposedly trying to keep it quiet,
05:11you know, be on the down low.
05:12But it's like, you know, the teamsters were picking us up, you know, at each other's house
05:16all the time.
05:17And they were like looking at each other, goo goo eyes.
05:21Anyway, you know, if she were here, she would tell this story.
05:24But she was still at this little boarding school in Vermont, the Putney School, when I made Diner.
05:32And it was a little bit of a splash, you know, because kid from this school, like, you know,
05:36is in this movie that's getting attention.
05:38And she saw the movie and she told her roommate that she was going to marry me someday, having
05:43never met me.
05:44Yeah.
05:45So.
05:46Wow.
05:47She, you know, she gets what she wants.
05:49What do you guys like to do when you're not working?
05:52I probably shouldn't talk about this.
05:54She'll probably be mad at me.
05:55But recently, this is really weird.
05:58We have been spending a lot of time at this cabin in the wilderness that has no electricity.
06:04And we've found these big burls, you know, those sort of knobs that grow off the trees.
06:09And we've been making these kind of art.
06:11I don't know if they're like, if it's art or if it's like a 50 pound salad bowl.
06:16But we've been making these, but we've been carving, like wood carving, making sculptures
06:19and stuff like that.
06:20When did you get involved in the coalition?
06:23When did you become president?
06:25Oh, gosh.
06:261843, I think it was.
06:28No, it was a long time ago.
06:30I've been doing this for a long time, maybe 15 years.
06:33You know, it was interesting.
06:34Robin Bronk, the CEO, asked me to come to Washington with a delegation to talk about arts funding
06:41and the National Endowment for the Arts and walk the halls of the Senate and the Congress
06:44and meet some people.
06:46And on the train down there, I was reading this biography, this Walter Isaacson biography
06:51of Einstein.
06:52And I was fascinated by the fact that Einstein, who was this huge brained theoretical astrophysicist
07:00and all, whatever he was.
07:02When he got stuck on a mathematical problem or on a theoretical problem, he would play his
07:08violin.
07:09And I started thinking about the connection between arts, creativity and imagination.
07:15And what I realized is that the imagination and creativity are muscles.
07:21And those muscles need to be exercised like any other muscle or they'll atrophy.
07:26And the gym for the creative mind and the imaginative mind are arts.
07:31That's where blue sky thinking and the great ideas come from.
07:35You know, there's been a lot of talk about STEM education.
07:38And I think that I'm actually the guy that coined the phrase STEAM education in 2008 when
07:44I was at the White House and got kind of pissed off because they were trying to get me to promote
07:48STEM.
07:49And I said, where are the arts?
07:50I said, first of all, STEM is a terrible acronym.
07:52It sounds like STEM cell researcher like a florist convention.
07:55And second of all, you know, arts are the thing that puts engineering and all this other
08:00stuff into a human context, right?
08:02An engineer without an imagination, just a technician.
08:06You know, you can get a robot or a monkey to just press a button or something.
08:09But it's the people that have the next big idea, the blue sky thinking, the things that
08:14no one would have thought possible that we need to nurture.
08:17And that's one of the most amazing things about this country is our creativity.
08:22And in order to nurture that and support it, we need arts.
08:25For some unknowable reason, there's always a politician or two who want to zero out the budget
08:30of the NEA and do away with that program once and for all.
08:36But we've been there to save it many times and we're trying to do it again.
08:38We have a lot of allies.
08:39So we're hopeful and pretty confident that we can do it.
08:42And what's going on exactly?
08:44What's proposed?
08:45Well, the first proposal, there was a budget that came out that proposed zeroing it out.
08:49We have enough allies in Congress that they put it back in at a budget of $135 million.
08:56And then we have enough allies in the Senate that they put it back at its former number
09:01of $207 million, which, by the way, is minute.
09:06It's a drop in the bucket of the federal government budget, but it's also incredibly impactful and
09:13effective because it's one of the few government programs that's actually a moneymaker.
09:18And in this era where a lot of folks are talking about efficiency, this is actually something
09:23that's putting money into the federal coffers.
09:25For every dollar spent by the National Endowment for the Arts, it returns about $9 in economic
09:29activity to the federal government.
09:31You know, when I started doing this work at the Creative Coalition, one of the things I
09:34read was that children who have a full curriculum in the arts are three times more likely to
09:39graduate from high school.
09:41What shocked me was that even armed with those statistics, a lot of people were against having
09:46arts in schools.
09:47Now the NEA isn't necessarily about arts in schools, but one of the things that people misunderstand
09:52about it is that they think that it's an organization that gives money to Hollywood or Broadway or
09:57something like that.
09:59It couldn't be farther from the truth.
10:01The amazing thing about the NEA is that it gives money to every single congressional district
10:05in the entire United States.
10:07So it disproportionately benefits small communities and small cities and rural communities who otherwise
10:12wouldn't have any arts.
10:14And their kids in their community wouldn't be exposed to dance or theater or music or a library
10:20or have after school programs and their veterans might not have an arts program who are suffering
10:24from PTSD.
10:26So it's important to understand that everybody in the entire country benefits from this program.
10:31And what is the coalition like?
10:33Do you guys differ politically or?
10:36We do.
10:37I mean, I would be lying if I said, you know, we weren't predominantly progressive, I think.
10:41I don't really know how to describe it.
10:43I think that, you know, I don't really know, frankly, you know, where a lot of people stand.
10:48But we do have conservative members.
10:52And we certainly have a lot of friends in Washington, D.C. on both sides of the aisle.
10:57You know, one of the other things about the Creative Coalition that's so great is that we
11:00believe powerfully in freedom of speech.
11:02So we do argue about stuff and about, you know, the approach to getting what we want.
11:09I think we're all on the same page because we are a nonpartisan organization and we don't
11:13think of arts as being a partisan endeavor.
11:15If I were, you know, running everything, I would make sure that everybody had arts and
11:20I would make sure that everybody had music especially and food because the arts bring
11:23people together.
11:25You know, they really bring people together.
11:27Everybody goes to a concert and listens to some music.
11:30And it's a reminder that we are far more alike than we are different.
11:33That's for sure.
11:36And one of the things, you know, I always say also because one of the arguments is about,
11:40you know, what constitutes art or, you know, or something that offends me or that I don't
11:45like.
11:46And I like to say that artists like food.
11:47Some of it we're going to think is absolutely delicious.
11:50Some of it we're going to think is gross.
11:52Some we might even be allergic to.
11:53But we cannot live without it.
11:56It's what keeps us alive sort of spiritually.
12:01And it what separates us from other beasts, you know, we have these amazing imaginations
12:08and our art is how we express that to each other.
12:12It's crazy right now.
12:14It is.
12:15I feel like there's so much noise.
12:19And adding to the noise, I don't think does anybody any good.
12:23Do I rage and scream and cry and retch and get all bent out of shape about what's going
12:28on privately?
12:29I do.
12:30But I don't think that expressing that is necessarily helping, you know, calm things
12:34down.
12:35I hope that we can find our way back to a place where at least we listen to each other
12:41and talk to each other in a reasonable way because the discourse has gotten really ugly.
12:45And obviously there's been, you know, political violence, which is never a good idea and always
12:51really scary.
12:52So you described it as things are crazy right now and they certainly are.
12:57It's funny, in Madam Secretary, I played a biblical scholar, right, an ethicist, and I am not
13:02a biblical scholar by any stretch of the imagination.
13:05However, it suddenly occurred to me, suddenly like three or four years ago, that if you were
13:11someone that understood biblical prophecy, we are living in the Tower of Babel, right?
13:18Everybody is screaming on their phone.
13:21And it's just cacophony.
13:23It's become almost meaningless.
13:25And to try to, you know, cut through and get something that's actually heard is difficult,
13:30if not impossible right now.
13:31I don't know the answer to it, but I wish that we would all just shut up, you know, calm
13:37down and try to have a conversation.
13:39I totally agree.
13:41But I do think that in terms of keeping, you know, the beautiful creativity of this country
13:47and the creative friction that we have, because we are a multicultural country, you know, that
13:55we have a kind of creativity that you don't often see in other places.
13:59And I would also remind anybody on any side of the aisle, we meet at music.
14:07And we meet at food.
14:09It's like those things are what enrich us.
14:12And those things are what's incredible about America.
14:16You know, we are an amazing place and we need to remember that, take advantage of that creative
14:23friction and come up with the next big idea to get us out of this mess.
14:27It is pretty easy for people to call up their representatives and to leave a message at the
14:36switchboard for your Senator or your Congress people and just say, I'm one of your constituents
14:42and I really want you to support funding for the National Endowment for the Arts.
14:45It's important to be heard because, you know, they work for you.
14:49So tell them what you want.
14:57You play guitar too.
14:58I do.
14:59Although right now I'm so woefully out of practice that I don't want to admit it.
15:09But this is another thing.
15:10To go back to early conversation, it's funny because I just did the thing that I always
15:14yell at people about.
15:16I ask people from all walks, I say, are you an artist?
15:19And invariably they say, no, no.
15:23But if I ask them, like if they strum their guitar in the basement or do they play, you
15:28know, bongo drums or sing in their church choir or make costumes for the kids to play,
15:31they're like, yeah.
15:32So I say, you are an artist.
15:34You're just not a professional artist.
15:36There's a big difference.
15:38Because I think that most of us participate in or at least are, and certainly are exposed
15:43to the arts every single day.
15:45I mean, who doesn't listen to music every day, you know, who doesn't look in their closet
15:49and say, oh, I want to wear my sparkly butterfly t-shirt today.
15:53That's an aesthetic choice.
15:55So it's important.
15:56It's a good way to look at it.
15:57Yeah.
15:58Wake up and say, ah, I'm surrounded by art.
16:01And it's meaningful to me.
16:02Guitar.
16:03Let's go back to that.
16:04Okay.
16:05Were you self-taught?
16:06Yes.
16:07Really?
16:08Yeah.
16:09When did you pick that up?
16:10Really in high school.
16:11I mean, I had, I should have been a musician.
16:13That's where I have the most natural talent.
16:15Well, you are.
16:16That's right.
16:17I am.
16:18You're right.
16:19Thank you for correcting me.
16:20I should have been a professional musician, but I'm too dang lazy.
16:23I have some aptitude for it, but yeah, I picked up guitar at high school and three months later
16:28I was playing lead guitar in a band.
16:30And then I had, you know, these funny bands when I first got to New York and then, you know,
16:34one thing led to another.
16:35I actually had this funny little band and we were rehearsing at this place called the Charles
16:40Street Studio.
16:41We were making a demo.
16:42And this guy came in and he said, I really, I think you guys are hot, man.
16:45I really want to put you in my club.
16:46And I said, what club?
16:47He said, the Bitter End.
16:48I was like, Bitter End?
16:49That's where like Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix and all these guys played.
16:53And so he said, finish the demo and then we'll talk about it.
16:56And the next week I got my first movie, Diner.
16:59The bass player got a job writing for Esquire or something and the drummer had his drum set
17:03stolen.
17:04So it all, all the rock and roll dreams went away.
17:06That's crazy.
17:07Yeah.
17:08How do you stay fit mentally and physically?
17:12Well, I've been meditating quite a lot, which sounds very woo-woo and it's, it's not really,
17:20you know.
17:21One of the things that has happened in this meditation I do is that for some reason I have
17:24laughing fits during this meditation because the guy says, you know, he says, well, actually
17:29Tay and I were doing it together and this guy says, you know, you might want to lie down
17:34for this meditation or you can sit up.
17:36And Tay just quietly said, losers.
17:39And we laughed for about 20 minutes.
17:40So our bellies are tilted, tears are streaming on our face.
17:43So laughter is good.
17:45Meditation is good.
17:46One of the things I've learned as I've gotten to my inappropriately advanced age is that everything
17:53in life is a practice.
17:54There are no finish lines, right?
17:55So you just got to keep doing stuff because, you know, the tiniest little thing, if you
18:02do it consistently over a period of time, adds up to something huge.
18:05You know, I go to therapy, which helps me.
18:09And physically, you know, I, I, I work out.
18:12Yeah.
18:13I don't know what I'm going to say.
18:14I mean, it's funny because Taya is the kind of person who, if she works out for two days,
18:20she like loses 10 pounds and gets ripped.
18:24And I, I was always like a chubby kid.
18:25So I've, I've been at this forever.
18:29And when people say to me like, well, you don't have to worry about it.
18:31You're skinny.
18:32I'm like, if you knew how many freaking hours I spent in the gym on the elliptical doing
18:37all this crap, it's, it's hard work, hard work for me, but I enjoy it.
18:40It keeps me sane also.
18:41Well, you look amazing and you get better looking as the years go.
18:45I swear.
18:46Uh, what's your favorite comfort food?
18:48Oh man.
18:49It depends on the day.
18:51Uh, well, um, I also really love cooking.
18:54So I would say, I mean, probably my last meal would be poached eggs on toast, but I make
19:00really good hummus and I love, that's very comforting to me.
19:03Uh, what's your favorite recipe that you cook besides hummus?
19:06Oh gosh, that's impossible.
19:08I mean, that's really impossible.
19:10I cook all kinds of stuff, but I guess one of the, one of my, you know, this is a, this
19:15has been a bad year for me because this is the first year in a long time.
19:19I don't have a garden.
19:20I'm a strange man.
19:21I have, I have like, I like to do a lot of different kinds of things, which is, uh, okay,
19:26but I love gardening.
19:27And I, and someplace in my thirties, like this sort of primordial Irish thing kicked in.
19:32I was like, must grow food, must grow my food.
19:35So, uh, I make this, um, eggplant Parmesan, but it, it has to be with the eggplant that
19:41I've grown and the tomatoes that I've grown and not the, not the, you know, the mozzarella.
19:45I don't, I don't make mozzarella, but, uh, that's something I love.
19:48I love it.
19:49So does Taya cook or do you do a cook?
19:51She does.
19:52Okay.
19:53Yeah.
19:54And she's like a, I call her a, a cook with a home run swing.
19:56She either knocks it out of the park or she whiffs.
19:58What's your favorite movie?
19:59Oh, come on.
20:00That's one of those, that's one of those questions.
20:04I think the movie that I've watched most in my life is the great escape because I mean,
20:10Steve McQueen was so freaking cool in that movie.
20:13I think he's sitting there throwing the baseball in the, in the cooler of this mitt.
20:18Oh man.
20:19Anyway, so that, so that's a high on my list.
20:22Favorite actor, actress.
20:23Well, my favorite actress is Taylor Leone for other reasons.
20:28You know, they're actors who are, are really great.
20:31Um, who do the same thing over and over and over and over and over again.
20:35And that to me is like, it's satisfying.
20:37It's like going to McDonald's, getting a big Mac, you know, what it's going to taste
20:40like whether you get it in, you know, Oregon or New York.
20:43I really admire actors who, uh, kind of go for it, you know, and try to do something
20:48different each time.
20:49Well, one of the actors I love who we just lost, Robert Redford, who was, um, uh, was
20:54sort of one of my heroes because talk about a guy that gave back.
20:56I mean, he was really an amazing supporter of artists and, and nurturer of, of young artists
21:03and, you know, environmentalists and just, you know, a good man.
21:06But I would say Gene Hackman.
21:07Gene Hackman for me is the guy.
21:10You know, you get the, like French connection and, and his performance in Superman.
21:14I mean, hilarious.
21:15So yeah.
21:16Yeah.
21:17You could hate him and then love him or laugh at him.
21:22Yeah.
21:23He's good.
21:24What would your current self tell your younger self?
21:26You know, there are various versions of my younger self and, you know, something I've
21:29thought about a lot, but I think I would say, come with me.
21:34I got this.
21:35You're going to, you're going to be okay.
21:37To hear more of this interview, visit our podcast, Life Minute TV on iTunes and all streaming
21:42podcast platforms.
21:44We'll we'll be right back.
21:45Thanks.
21:46And we'll be right back.
21:47Make sure to see you next time.
21:48Absolutely.
21:49He'll be right back.
21:51All onдел through on campus.
21:53And someone walking on the street, we'll be right back.
21:54There's all about my friends and 열�,
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